Russia's Defence Minister, Heads of Companies to Discuss Future of Defence Industries in Severodvinsk, June 26

Invited by Governor Anatoly Efremov, a large governmental delegation will visit the Arkhangelsk Region on June 26. The delegation headed by Sergei Ivanov, the Defence Minister, will also include German Gref, the Minister of Economic Development and Trade; Alexander Rumyantsev, the Minister of Atomic Energy; Vladimir Pospelov, Director of the Agency for Shipbuilding; and a number of deputy defence ministers, General Staff officers, and aides to federal ministers.

The programme includes a visit of the representatives of the government to the Sevmashpredpriyatiye and Zvyozdochka plants in the town of Severodvinsk. The ministers will have meetings with the directors of the plants and the chief designers of design bureaus. Discussed will be the repayment of the debts owed by the Defence Ministry to the plants and the further development of the defence industry, including military shipbuilding.

Mr. Ivanov will also take part in the ceremony for the return to the Northern Fleet of the Akula [Shark]heavy strategic atomic submarine of the Typhoon class by NATO classification. After a 12-year-long modernisation, the cruiser sub, once entered in the Guinness book of records as the world's largest, will again become active. The sub was designed at the Rubin design bureau by a group of scientists headed by Sergei Kovalyov, the Chief Designer at the time. It was built at the Sevmashpredpriyatiye plant and launched in 1980. Later the plant output 5 more subs of this series.